The despairing lover next resolved to try a more orthodox method of removing his obnoxious rival, and called upon the Rector, to whom he unfolded his case with some difficulty, and who listened in evident amusement, but not very great surprise.
“To tell you the truth, Hardy,” he remarked, throwing himself back in his chair, “you are not the only sufferer. I think about six men have already come to me on the very same errand.”
“Six chaps come to ye about Chrissy Baverstock?” stammered Jim, purple in the face with anguish.
“Not about Chrissy Baverstock—if I remember aright each had a complaint to make about a different young woman, but it was always the same man. He must be a redoubtable fellow, this yeoman of yours.”
“He bain’t none o’ mine,” retorted Jim, “an’ I can’t think whatever the maids do see in him. I didn’t know there was more nor one,” he added reflectively, while a ray of hope seemed to illuminate his visage.
“I am very sorry for you, but I’m afraid I can’t help you. You see Willcocks is no parishioner of mine. And though I have spoken to some of the girls in question, my words seem to have no effect. Their heads are turned, I think, by his tales of battles and dangers and hairbreadth escapes. They make a hero of him. But console yourself. After all there is safety in numbers.”
“’Ees,” agreed Jim meditatively. “If there’s six of us, we ought to be able to do summat.”
It was late when he left the rectory, and he bent his steps immediately to a small hostelry in the town, which he occasionally patronised, but which the condition of his spirits had not permitted him to frequent of late, dreading as he did the facetious remarks of his cronies.
On pushing open the swing door, he found himself at once in the midst of a party of heated disputants, and the first phrase which greeted his ears revealed that the subject of the argument was the very one which occupied his own thoughts.
“I d’ ’low I’d knock that there blasted, broad-brimmed hat off his head so soon as I’d look at en—and his head too if it comes to that.”